Story Time
Lecture 1, Part 3
A story
- Here is one you might all know
- In 1912, Rose boards a ship, where she meets and falls in love with Jack, a poor artist, threatening her engagement to the wealthy Cal.
- As their romance blossoms, they navigate social boundaries and personal freedoms aboard the luxurious ship.
- The ship hits an iceberg, causing catastrophic damage and panic among passengers and crew as the ship begins to sink.
- Jack and Rose fight for survival, facing both physical dangers and societal expectations in their desperate bid to stay together.
- Tragically, it ends with the sinking of the ship, with Jack sacrificing his life to save Rose, who survives to tell their story.
A Picture of Contrasts
- Five bullets on a slide vs A famous movie
- Adjusted for inflation, $1.2 Billion in US box office movie business
- Quote from Robert McGee (2003 Harvard Business Review) on stories: “fulfill a profound human need to grasp the patterns of living not merely as an intellectual exercise, but within a very personal, emotional experience”
An Outline to close out tonight
- GOAL: connect your ideas/analyses to your audience’s emotion
- Suggested solution: the best way - tell a compelling story
- HUH? Stories allow us to weave a lot of information into whatever we are presenting and you connect to your audience’s emotions and energy.
- THIS IS NOT EASY TO DO! (practice makes perfect)
An Outline to close out tonight (cont’d)
- REQUIREMENTS
- clear understanding of your material
- storytelling skills to present ideas that connect with your audience
- RESULT - your ideas are REMEMBERED.
- If you can capture the principles of good storytelling, then you get people applauding instead of yawning.
If we have time (if not, check Campuswire)
- Suppose you were interviewing with IKEA or consulting with them
- Here is some data, I’d like to to examine it with an interview in mind
- With the specific goal of building a visualization from it (no programming necessary)
A data visualization with a story
- stories often center on life as it is/was and its patterns of change
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Kinds of Data Viz stories
- There are plenty, to name a few
- illustrate change
- communicate understanding
- purely descriptive
- poses solutions to a problem
- Neuroscientists tell us we forget bullet points, but we remember stories.
Some applicable situations
- We could identify some situations where Data Viz storytelling might apply:
- Convincing your committee your model is the best model
- Persuading your employer to apply your recommender system
- Explaining to a prospective employer the visualization you created for the interview
- Highlighting problems, finding something of interest (possible solution?)
Reassurance
- There is NO expectation of perfection in Stats 422
- Generating data visualizations with ggplot has a learning curve
- Even if you use ChatGPT
Strategic Storytelling with Data Visualization
- Keep it simple
- Edit ruthlessly
- Be genuine
- Don’t communicate for yourself — communicate for your audience.
- The story you are telling is not for you; the story is for them. Help your audience to see what you see in the data.
More on the Audience
- Always keep your audience in mind. Give them a reason for spending time with you.
- Think about what will resonate with them and motivate them.
- Also think about whether and when data will strengthen your story and integrate data sensibly.
- Make the information presented specific and relevant to your audience.
Advice for Data Visualizations & their stories
- Even the most beautiful data visualization might fail if it does not possess a compelling story/narrative.
- A strong story will overcome a weak data visualization.
- Aim to display data in such a way that makes the complex clear.
- THE IDEAL - when effective visuals are combined with a powerful story.
Tactical advice on Data Visualizations
- If someone were to only read the label and title of your data visualization, they should still know what it was about
- All information presented should be self-reinforcing. The content reinforces the titles. The words reinforce the visual, Avoid extraneous or unrelated information.
- The decision on what to drop is as important as the decision on what to keep.
- Outcome based story development (start with the takeaway and work backwards)
- Ask others to comment/give feedback